Tatler – Cluny Castle

When Julia Linzee Gordon initially laid eyes on the gigantic, glowering, grey-granite Cluny Castle in 1988, she saw it as a warm and friendly home, basking in the sun. She had just begun dating her future husband, Nick, and he had driven her from Edinburgh to meet his parents at the family seat. Less stalwart girls might have balked as the turreted castle loomed into view, but not Julia. She grew up in Hampshire and then at Totterton Hall – a rambling, haunted Georgian mansion in Shropshire – and was not one to be daunted either by size or by ghosts.